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Breakfast of Champions (With 88 Grams of Fat!)

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A friend of mine was observing me making my breakfast the other day. She’s been hip to the dangers of low-fat diets and the benefits of saturated fat for some time now, but even so she was pretty surprised with just how much fat I was plowing into my smoothie. We thought it might be fun to actually measure the amount and do a full nutritional analysis on my breakfast.

Here’s the recipe:

  • 1.5 cups of whole, raw milk
  • 8 oz. of whole, plain yogurt made with raw milk
  • 1/4 cup of cream
  • 3 TBS of extra virgin coconut oil (melted)
  • 1 TBS of raw, grass-fed butter(melted)
  • 1/2 cup of strawberries (frozen or fresh, depending on season)
  • 1/2 cup of blueberries (frozen or fresh, depending on season)
  • 1/2 cup of raspberries (frozen or fresh, depending on season)
  • 2 raw egg yolks (from pastured chickens)

And here’s the nutrition breakdown:

nutrition data
calorie breakdown

The results are enough to give a cardiologist a heart attack. My morning fruit smoothie contains 88 grams of fat and 1,097 calories. 66% of those calories are coming from fat. According to the calorie calculators (that I normally pay no attention to), a person of my height and weight that is very active should consume approximately 2500 calories per day and no more than 83 grams of fat in a day (at 30% of calories). As you can see, I’m blowing right past that in my first meal of the day!

Of course the powers that be suggest that only 1/3 of those fat calories come from saturated fat. Oops! A full 62 of those 88 grams of fat in my smoothie are saturated. Yum!

Anyone still laboring under the delusion that eating saturated fat makes you fat might think I weigh 300 pounds eating a breakfast like this every day. On the contrary, I have to struggle to keep the weight on. I am 6’2 and weigh about 170 pounds. Yes, I am relatively active but nothing extreme. I commute by bicycle almost everywhere, and that makes a big difference. I go to the climbing gym once or twice a week, surf and kiteboard when I can, and practice martial arts occasionally. But we’re not talking about 1.5 hour workouts on the Stairmaster or running half-marathons every day.

What’s great about this breakfast is that it fills me up until lunch (because of all the fat, of course) and gives me all the nutrition I need for the morning. As you can see from the following chart, the smoothie is almost meeting (and in one case exceeding) the US RDA of several vitamins and minerals:

vitamin data

I should also point out that this is generally the only sweet thing I eat each day. I have completely lost my craving for sugar. I mean completely. No deprivation, no rules – I just don’t want it anymore. This is coming from a guy who started cooking at a very young age just so he could make his own chocolate chip cookies!

How did I lose my craving for sugar? By eating a lot of fat. Fat creates satiety, which is the feeling of being satisfied after eating.

When we don’t eat enough fat, we crave carbs and sugar because we don’t feel satisfied. And ironically, eating carbs and sugar cause hormonal changes that stimulate more cravings for carbs and sugar. It’s a vicious cycle.

So if you want to reduce your cravings for sugar, eat more fat! Saturated, animal fats of course.

In case you’re wondering, lunch and dinner are usually some kind of grass-fed meat along with a cooked vegetable and a salad. And of course the vegetables are covered with butter or cheese, and the salad has nuts, avocado, cheese and olive oil. Why? Read my recent article “Have some butter with your veggies!” to find out.

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Chris Kresser in kitchen
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74 Comments

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  1. Hi Chris!

    I’m curious as to why you focus on including grass-fed meat in your typical dinner, versus fish? A lot of what I seem to hear and read has me thinking that it is better to eat more fish than meat. Can you please help me with this? Thank you! I love your site!

  2. I would like to add more fat and protein to my son’s smoothies, but he doesn’t tolerate dairy well. Do you have any suggestions and also how do you keep the coconut oil from solidifying again in the cold smoothie. Thank you.

    • Do you have a stick blender? I would melt the coconut oil and then add it slowly whilst whizzing.
      My boy is allergic to dairy and I add coconut cream. Tesco (if you are in the uk) sells small cans of coconut cream. He loves that! Or buy a can of coconut milk, put it in the fridge and then after a few hours scoop off the cream and add to the smoothie.
      You can also mix the coconut oil with egg before adding it to the smoothie, that adds protein to smoothie too. If you add some vanilla too it is gorgeous.

    • April, I make a LOT of smoothie’s and always testing new sources of fat for smoothie’s. Here are some non-dairy ways to add fat to your smoothie’s:

      Almond Milk
      Coconut Milk
      Coconut Butter
      Avocado
      Avocado Oil
      Olive Oil
      Macadamia Oil

  3. I have been eating high fat low carb since feb2015 and am amazed at the results. I have reaserched all the benefits and supposed negatives. I feel Healthier, less lethargic and have lost weight (added bonus). People need to realise that high carb is really bad for you and there is nothing wrong with sat fats. They keep you satisfied and full. My only observation in this smoothie is that it alone contains 54g carbs. If your aim is to loose weight Inwould suggest you try to keep UNDER 50g carbs PER DAY. if 50g is still too high halve that to 25g.
    Remember that exercise will not make you loose weight, your diet will. Exercise will keep your body healthy, build lean muscle and make you look good naked.

  4. You’re begging for a whole host of diseases with your high fat intake. There is nothing healthy about your lifestyle and there is certainly nothing healthy about consuming so much diary. (Remember, we’re the only species who takes another baby’s milk for ourselves and also remember a cow’s milk is designed to turn a baby into a 500kg+ cow in a year). Holy crap, my kidneys are in pain just reading what you consume. High-carb, low-fat, high-raw VEGANISM is the way to go. I see a lot of people raving about grass-fed meat… Please tell me how this lifestyle is truly sustainable? If everybody in America ALONE were to eat meat from grass-fed sources, it would take SIXTEEN planet Earths to provide enough room for just cows. Understand that humans require huge amounts of carbohydrates and a minimal amount of fat to thrive, to be truly healthy. You have been fed bullshit, taught to fear carbohydrates.

    Join the raw til 4 vegan community, we’re cruel-free, GLOW with health and we encourage UNLIMITED calories from high carbohydrate meals. I’m talking unlimited fruits, pasta, rice, beans, legumes, potatoes, all the yummy stuff! Respect your body and the Earth enough to make the right choice. Simply Google raw til 4 and you’ll find an infinite amount of sources, testimonials and information that can provide you with everything you need to know.

    • Seriously? Show me one raw vegan world class body builder. There is nothing natural about humans eating rabbit food you simpleton. You think people ate any plants besides fruit before the agricultural revolution? Try some research before you preach diets that are known to not work.

    • I always have to laugh when people say “we’re the only species too…” That applies to many things. We are the only species to live in buildings. I guess by your logic that should end. We are the only species to use toilet paper. Would you like to stop that? Being the only species is no proof of anything, just supporting what you like to hear.

    • Another Vegan comment – “how is that sustainable?” The planet used to support 10,000 people. The fact that humanity is overgrown does nothing to disprove the health benefits of grass-fed, nor does it prove Veganism is as healthy. Stop using logical fallacies to support your dogma.

      Lastly, I’ve never seen a Vegan glow with health, unless you think Ethiopians are sexy.

      • You lost me with the Ethiopian comment or should I say INSULT to a WHOLE group of people.

    • your post is absolutely annoying!
      Seriously. Was this person asking for an opinion about his or her lifestyle ? Why even comment!? If you don’t like the info your reading then move on to someone else’s post! but I see no need to put someone else down as if your something special an by the looks of your comment your not anything special at all! I really don’t mean any disrespect but, your comment was so unnecessary.

    • We’re the only species that drive cars and use computers etc etc. I’m sure if other species could figure out how to drink the milk of another , they would. It’s a perfect food in it’s raw form.

      • Absolutely
        I haven’t felt so good after I started drinking raw milk
        Lost my sugar craving and regained a lot of my energy
        I started eating and avocodo with some cherry tomatoes and a can of wild caught sardines in the morning about 30 G of fat and I feel soo much better and alert in the morning

    • And yet a high fat low carb diet treats epilepsy. So all those epileptics should stop doing what works and go vegan. I think not.

    • Humans are the only species to use phones. So, call all your friends and tell them how awesome milk is….

    • LOL..reading your statement tells me you know nothing about diet at all or the way humans are designed to eat. Vegan diet will kill you and make sure to give that diet to a pregnant mother. Child abuse.
      Go research Weston A price. Humans are designed to eat meat, all the nutrients we need are only found in fat. Go read a dam chemistry book. Go research Jack Kruse too, Charles polquin, Joseph Mercola, etc.
      People like you need to be locked up for killing anyone who believes the nonsense your talking about. By the way I have been there, I have done and researched diet for over 20 years, so yeah speaking from experience.

  5. I am thrilled that this smoothie has so much fat & berries…. what do you think the ‘fiber’ count is in this recipe? I need to subtract the fiber from the carb count, so I can have a ‘net carb’ amount…. I need to keep my ‘net carbs’ below 20 per day at this time.
    Thanks for your help!

  6. I’m excited to try this breakfast smoothie. I’ve been Paleo/WAPF for about 2 years now and seen amazing health results. I have also gained weight, which in my case, wasn’t a terrible thing, but I want to make sure I don’t gain any more (maintenance). I follow you and other similar bloggers pretty zealously, so I’m already convinced about the high fat start to my day. My question is about sweeteners…. I see you used berries. I don’t eat sugar, but I use raw honey or maple syrup sometimes. Or ripe bananas. What about one of those (preferably honey) in this smoothie with unsweetened chocolate powder. I’ve already tried it and it’s DELICIOUS. In fact, I passed it off on my non-paleo junk-food addicted boyfriend as an ice cream shake and he devoured it 🙂 BUT I want to make sure that adding honey or bananas isn’t gonna make me blow up like a balloon. Or am I better off to suck it up and omit any kind of sweetener?

  7. Chris, how does one handle that much fat if one has had their gallbladder removed? Wouldn’t that be a difficult proposition?

    Thanks,
    Mark